Month: February 2008

Ignoring Senator Hillary Clinton’s work with, and in opposition to Republicans, Obama said “Her natural inclination is to draw a picture of Republicans as people who need to be crushed and defeated”. Apparently Obama’s view is kindness to Republicans while trashing Democrats.

A solid majority of voters (56%) says Obama has not provided enough information about his plans and policies; in contrast, most voters say Clinton and McCain have disclosed enough information about their plans. Moreover, a plurality of voters (43%) says that Obama would not be “tough enough” in dealing with foreign policy and national security issues.

Although attention has been focused on McCain’s problems with the GOP base, there are indications that some Democrats might defect if Obama is the party’s nominee. Overall, 20% of white Democratic voters say they would vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee. That is twice the percentage of white Democrats who say they would support McCain in a Clinton-McCain matchup. Older Democrats (ages 65 and older), lower-income and less educated Democrats also would support McCain at higher levels if Obama rather than Clinton is the party’s nominee. [snip]

In general, the single words used to describe Obama are very positive, but the word “inexperienced” is used most frequently to describe the Illinois senator.

“Experienced” is the word used most often to describe Clinton, with the words “strong” and untrustworthy” also mentioned frequently. For McCain, the word “old” is used most often as a descriptor, far outnumbering mentions of “honest,” “experienced” and “patriot.”

Despite repeated requests, Barack Obama’s campaign is still neither verifying nor denying a CTV report that a senior member of the team made contact with the Canadian government — via the Chicago consulate general — regarding comments Obama made about NAFTA. [snip]

On Wednesday, CTV reported that a senior member of Obama’s campaign called the Canadian government within the last month — saying that when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn’t worry. The operative said it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.

The Obama campaign told CTV late Thursday night that no message was passed to the Canadian government that suggests that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.

However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama’s senior economic adviser — Austan Goolsbee — and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago.

Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the Canadian government on the NAFTA issue. On Thursday night, CTV spoke with Goolsbee, but he refused to say whether he had such a conversation with the Canadian government office in Chicago. He also said he has been told to direct any questions to the campaign headquarters. [snip]

Sources at the highest levels of the Canadian government — who first told CTV that a call was made from the Obama camp — have reconfirmed their position.

And then there is Obama’s indicted slumlord friend Rezko which few Americans have heard about. Obama denounces Federal lobbyists but takes money and friendship from statehouse lobbyists. Obama attacks Washington, D.C. and national Democrats but remains silent about his corrupt Chicago friends. ABC News calls it an Obama “Cesspool”:

With the corruption trial of one of Sen. Barack Obama’s longtime friends and supporters set to begin Monday in Chicago, Ill., reform watchdogs say it will reveal the “cesspool” of Illinois politics in which Obama came of age and has said little about in his campaign for president.

“We have a sick political culture,” said Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, “and that’s the environment that Barack Obama came from.”

Stewart says he does not understand why Obama has lectured others about corruption in Washington and Kenya but “been noticeably silent on the issue of corruption here in his home state, including at this point, mostly Democratic politicians.” [snip]

“This wasn’t just some guy who wrote a check once for Barack Obama, it’s someone who was an early supporter and had a personal relationship with Sen. Obama for quite some time,” Stewart said.

Indeed, even after he was elected to the United States Senate, Obama involved Rezko in a land deal that enabled the senator to buy his current home on Chicago’s South Side.

Obama has since called his decision to involve Rezko “a bone-headed mistake.”

“Tony Rezko is all that is wrong with the old kind of politics or any kind of politics,” said the Better Government Association’s Stewart.

The Rezko trial will focus on Rezko’s alleged role in steering Illinois state contracts in exchange for kickbacks and political contributions to Rezko friends.

The most damning examples cited by prosecutors involve Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but several of the contributions were directed to Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign.

A motion filed by federal prosecutors identifies two instances when Rezko directed contributions to an unnamed “political candidate” who has since been identified by Chicago newspapers as Obama. [snip]

In his campaign for president, Obama has railed against people like Rezko.

“If you are ready for change, then we can go ahead and tell the lobbyists and the fat cats that their days are over,” he said in a speech last month in Akron, Ohio.

The Better Government Association’s Stewart says Illinois politics is the opposite of the sentiments Obama now praises.

“That’s a noble version he is describing. He is not talking about Illinois when he does that,” said Stewart, who acknowledges Obama was “a cut above” most state legislators and reliably supported ethics legislation.

“I don’t begrudge him for speaking out on it (corruption) in Washington or Kenya. If it’s appropriate, you should say it. To say it’s appropriate in Illinois is a huge understatement,” Stewart said.

Obama’s cesspool is overflowing. Americans should be afraid, very afraid.

Several small but big items today – mostly about money – including Rezko money.

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First of all, the Hillary Clinton campaign is expecting to raise about $35 million in February. Although from Day 1 on Big Pink we have asked for online contributions to include 44 cents, our very first moneybomb fundraising day was on February 12, 2008.

The Hillary campaign website has posted several testimonials which include contributors adding 44 cents in proud grassroots support of Hillary. This means our fundraising is having an effect. $35 million in one month is testimony to what we can do.

This all means it is time to plan and publicize another moneybomb. Contact Moneybomb@HillaryIs44.org with suggestions on when the moneybomb should take place and why on that date. Post suggestions in the comments section as well.

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Second, the comments section in the previous article has great information on today’s NAFTA flim flam by Obama as well as information about how to fight for our superdelegates.

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Back in April 2007 we wrote that The national media are missing the big picture in their coverage of the hundred-million dollar plus scandal involving Barack Obama and his friend of 17 years, major donor, former Finance Committee Co-Chair and now indicted slumlord.

Big Media is missing the picture yet again (or should we say trying as much as possible to hide the picture).

This past Tuesday, we referenced an article in the London Times. The importance of that article is that it brings the Obama/Rezko house transaction right into the middle of the Rezko trial which starts this coming Monday.

Mrs Rezko’s purchase and sale of the land to Mr Obama raises many unanswered questions.

It is unclear how Mrs Rezko could have afforded the downpayment of $125,000 and a $500,000 mortgage for the original $625,000 purchase of the garden plot at 5050 South Greenwood Ave.

In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had “no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations.”

The London Times strongly implies that Rezko got the money for Obama’s house from Nadhmi Auchi. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago. and Asked if she used money from her husband to buy the land next to Mr Obama’s house, she said: “I can’t answer these questions, I’m sorry.”

Superdelegates have to consider how Obama and all the ugly entanglements of longtime slumlord friend, the indicted Antoin “Tony” Rezko will play out over the course of the next 10 months.

On a spring day in 2004, Nadhmi Auchi, one of the world’s richest men, flew in to Midway Airport on a private jet. Met by a welcoming party that included Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (there at the request of the Blagojevich administration) and businessman Tony Rezko, Auchi was brought to a downtown hotel where he was the guest of honor at a reception hosted by Blagojevich.

The Iraqi-born billionaire — who lives in London — had come to Chicago on business. He would go on to invest nearly $170 million in a prime piece of vacant land in the South Loop — 62 acres along the Chicago River that Rezko wanted to develop.

There is a dispute between the London Times and the Chicago Sun-Times as to whether Obama ever met Nadhmi Auchi, who has been convicted of corruption in France. The dispute remains unresolved as of today.

We suspect the answers regarding Obama’s entanglements with corrupt characters, a severe lack of judgment, will be answered by Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

We warned against enabling MSNBC/NBC. Last night Tim Russert and Brian Williams perfumed the air for Barack Obama and tried to hurt Hillary Clinton with “gotcha” questions and videos. Big Media tool Barack Obama cooperated with his Big Media trainers. Hillary still beat them.

Invoking a Saturday Night Live sketch, which mocked Big Media adulation and protection of their tool, Hillary put Tim Russert and Brian Williams on notice that she was prepared to take them on as well. That warning probably prevented a full out assault against Hillary. Still, the assault on Hillary was ugly. Even other Big Media outlets took notice of the bias:

I sometimes find the Clinton campaign’s complaints about the media hard to take, but that was a bit of an SNL re-enactment.

Russert just grilled Clinton, hard, on Nafta, and on her unfilled pledge to bring jobs to Upstate New York.

Williams’ question to Obama on experience: “How were her comments about you unfair?”

PINOs, Naderites and Barack Obama supporters applaud Big Media and the anti-Hillary bias of the broadcasts and print coverage. They have all lost the right to complain when Big Media trains its fire on behalf of John McCain and Republicans.

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For a long time, we have discussed the Stinky Politics represented by Obama and his henchmen. We wrote:

Want to know how ’stinky’ the 2008 presidential race is going to get?

In the week of December 17, 2003 a very dirty advertisment appeared on Iowa television. The spokesman and (one of three) leader for the group that ran the ad was Robert Gibbs. Robert Gibbs is also the current communications director for Barack Obama.

The 2003 advertisment, just before the Iowa caucuses, morphed the face of Osama Bin Laden with the face of then frontrunner presidential candidate Howard Dean.

Despite often lofty rhetoric that he plans to bring the nation a “new kind of politics,” Sen. Barack Obama has surrounded himself with operatives skilled in the old-school art of the political backstab. [snip]

When Obama assembled his crew early this year, he brought together a team with a long track record of the sort of caustic rhetoric he has pledged to avoid, just as other presidential candidates have done by hiring people similarly talented in the art of opposition research and attack. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) even hired some of the very people who trashed his 2000 presidential bid.

From his campaign headquarters in a high-rise on Michigan Avenue, Obama’s political warriors range from a research director with extensive experience in throwing darts from Democratic National Committee’s offices to a communications director who once worked for a group that ran a controversial ad that used an image of Osama bin Laden to attack Howard Dean.

Obama’s latest campaign hiccup started with documents that sarcastically questioned Clinton’s ties to India that were pitched to reporters on a not-for-attribution basis. The documents later became public, angering many Indian-American supporters.

Today, a real Professor, writes about the gap between Senator Barack Obama’s promises of a pure, soul-cleansing “new” politics and the calculated, deeply dishonest conduct of his actually-existing campaign. Professor Sean Wilentz continues where we left off:

Misleading propaganda is hardly new in American politics –although the adoption of techniques reminiscent of past Republican and special-interest hit jobs, right down to a retread of the fictional couple [Harry and Louise], seems strangely at odds with a campaign that proclaims it will redeem the country from precisely these sorts of divisive and manipulative tactics. As insidious as these tactics are, though, the Obama campaign’s most effective gambits have been far more egregious and dangerous than the hypocritical deployment of deceptive and disingenuous attack ads. To a large degree, the campaign’s strategists turned the primary and caucus race to their advantage when they deliberately, falsely, and successfully portrayed Clinton and her campaign as unscrupulous race-baiters–a campaign-within-the-campaign in which the worked-up flap over the Somali costume photograph is but the latest episode. While promoting Obama as a “post-racial” figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics.

The Obama campaign gay bashing, gay baiting tour of South Carolina was also “egregious and dangerous”. Obama sought to exploit stereotypes, prejudice and ignorance to divide two jewels of the Democratic base, African-Americans and Gay Americans. That gay bashing tour was the dress rehearsal for the race baiting Professor Wilentz describes.

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the “race card” were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the “race-baiter card” before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada–and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters. This development is the latest sad commentary on the malign power of the press, hyping its own favorites and tearing down those it dislikes, to create pseudo-scandals of the sort that hounded Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. It is also a commentary on how race can make American politics go haywire. Above all, it is a commentary on the cutthroat, fraudulent politics that lie at the foundation of Obama’s supposedly uplifting campaign.

[Debate tonight from 9:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. (ET) on MSNBC. Join us tonight for our usual lively discussion of the debate.]

There is a Democratic Party debate tonight. Hillary will represent the Democratic Party and its values at the debate.

As regular readers know we have made the argument that MSNBC and NBC are already at war with the Hillary Clinton campaign and therefore Hillary should NOT participlate in NBC or MSNBC debates.

Our counsel against enabling NBC/MSNBC was not taken. The debate will take place tonight in Ohio at Cleveland State University as scheduled.

In the past few days Hillary has been drawing clearer contrasts with the flim flam man.

On health care Hillary has been drawing the distinction between her Universal health care plan in which every American is covered and Obama’s plan which leaves out 15 million Americans. The argument for Hillary to make is not one of detail distinctions but rather the broader argument that, like Social Security, the only way for a universal health care plan to work is for everyone to participate in the plan. Americans understand the concept of universal participation in risks and costs. The Hillary plan is the “unity” plan in which we are all in it together. That is the argument which must be made.

Over the past seven years, we’ve seen what happens when the president presents the American people with a series of false choices and then is indifferent about the consequences: force versus diplomacy, unilateralism versus multilateralism, hard power versus soft. We’ve seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We can’t let that happen again. America has already taken that chance— one time too many. [snip]

One thing the American people can be sure of, I will not broadcast threats of unilateral military action against a country like Pakistan just to demonstrate that I am tough enough for the job. We have to change our tone and change our course. [snip]

Senator Obama, meanwhile, represents another choice. He wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions can solve the world’s most intractable problems. To advocating rash unilateral military action without cooperation from our allies in the most sensitive region of the world.

Electing a president should not be an either/or proposition when it comes to national security. We need a president who knows how to deploy both the olive branch and the arrows, who will be ready to act swiftly and decisively in a crisis, who will pursue strategic demands of hard diplomacy to re-establish moral authority and our leadership. In this moment of peril and promise, we need a president who is tested and ready, who can draw on years of real world experience working on many of the issues that we now confront, who knows when to stand ones ground and when to seek common ground, who has the strength and fortitude to meet the challenges head on without fear and without sowing fear.

Another overarching theme that should be bought to the public attention is that Obama is never there when you need him. Whether on his “present” votes, skipping out on the Kyle-Lieberman vote, the contradictions between the Obama rhetoric and the Obama vote history which substitutes words for action, or Obama’s failure to represent his constitutents as a State Senator, Obama is never there when you need him.

Obama’s talk of unity and divisive activity will likely not be explored tonight. Obama’s exploitation of anti-gay bigotry in South Carolina and willingness to pit African-Americans against Gay Americans for his own political benefit will likely not be explored. Young voters will not be informed of Obama’s dirty dealings against Gay Americans.

The moderators will surely not ask Obama about the pending Rezko trial and the daily revelations as the trial approaches. Be sure that the latest news on the Rezko front will never arise in the MSNBC debate, even as Republicans and McCain sharpen their knives and forks:

A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama’s bagman Antoin “Tony” Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.

Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city’s South Side while Mr Rezko’s wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.

Mr Obama says he never used Mrs Rezko’s still-empty lot, which could only be accessed through his property. But he admits he paid his gardener to mow the lawn.

Mrs Rezko, whose husband was widely known to be under investigation at the time, went on to sell a 10-foot strip of her property to Mr Obama seven months later so he could enjoy a bigger garden.

Mr Obama now admits his involvement in this land deal was a “boneheaded mistake”.

Mrs Rezko’s purchase and sale of the land to Mr Obama raises many unanswered questions.

It is unclear how Mrs Rezko could have afforded the downpayment of $125,000 and a $500,000 mortgage for the original $625,000 purchase of the garden plot at 5050 South Greenwood Ave.

In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had “no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations.”

Mrs Rezko, whose husband goes on trial on unrelated corruption charges in Chicago on March 3, refused to answer questions to The Times.

There’s a strong chance the name of presidential contender Barack Obama will surface at indicted political fund-raiser Tony Rezko’s trial, which begins next week.

In a nine-page ruling this afternoon, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she would allow federal prosecutors to present evidence about a portion of a $375,000 finder’s fee that a Rezko associate, Joseph Aramanda, obtained through an alleged kickback scheme orchestrated by Rezko. [snip]

The ruling does not identify Obama as the recipient of that contribution. But sources have identified Obama as the “political candidate” who prosecutors say received a $10,000 contribution from Aramanda — at Rezko’s direction — during his 2004 run for U.S. Senate. Obama has donated that contribution to charity.
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Today is the day. Donate to help make Hillary 44.

Monday, February 25, 2008 is the day the Rezko trial was supposed to begin (now the Rezko trial begins on March 3, 2008).

We ask all Hillary supporters to make a donation to Hillary for President along with 44 cents to let Hillary know the real grassroots of the party and the country are with her.

Please donate a minimum contribution to Hillary of $10.44. Those who want to send a message of appreciation to Bill Clinton could donate $42.44. Of course bigger contributions, more money donated, the better.

Let’s keep the momentum going after a good weekend of fundraising by the Hillary campaign. Money is greatly needed to get Hillary’s message out for the March 4, 2008 primaries in Texas and Ohio. Donations received today will assist our efforts in Texas and Ohio.

What helps the most now is to supply the campaign with financing and volunteers to carry the message forward. Many of you are already helping with phone calls and volunteers are traveling to or living in states about to decide the fate of the world.

Those who have already volunteered, and those who have not yet volunteered, contact your Facebook or Myspace lists and every email list you have to inform them of this effort to raise funds needed in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Don’t forget to inform friends and family of today’s fundraiser.

February 24, 2008 — The corruption trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, due to start in federal court in Chicago tomorrow, comes at a bad time for Barack Obama.

The senator from Illinois is surging ahead of his rival Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race by presenting himself as Mr. Clean, untainted by the corrupt ways of Washington politics.

But Obama’s ability to make the right call on important issues, and his claim to be untainted by politics as usual, is seriously called into doubt by his alliance with the property developer and fast food franchiser Rezko, a close personal friend and one of his most generous donors.

Um, “no suggestion that Obama has done anything illegal”? We disagree, if the Rezko deals had anything to do with the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars Rezko received and Obama enabled. Maybe the FBI mole will have an answer.

While there is no suggestion that Obama has done anything illegal, the Rezko trial will focus attention upon the propriety of a deal between the senator and Rezko that substantially raised the value of the senator’s sumptuous home on Chicago’s South Side. What Rezko expected from Obama in return remains unclear.

In June 2005, Obama bought a 98-year-old Kenwood mansion from a University of Chicago doctor for $1.65 million, using a $1.69 million advance he received from publishers Crown for his book, “The Audacity of Hope.” The same day Rezko’s wife Rita paid the doctor $625,000 for the empty lot adjoining Obama’s property.

Even though at the time Rezko was under federal investigation for influence-peddling in Illinois Governor Blagojevich’s administration, Obama did business with him, buying for $104,500 a 10-foot wide strip of Rita Rezko’s lot, ostensibly to provide space for a fence. The deal left Mrs. Rezko’s lot too small to build upon, thereby lifting the value of Obama’s home.

“Boneheaded”? That’s the least of it.

Obama denies wrongdoing. “I misgauged the appearance presented by my purchase of the additional land from Mr. Rezko,” Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor.”

Obama now calls “boneheaded” his decision to continue to consort with Rezko even after a grand jury investigation into his dealings had begun and he has given about $150,000 of Rezko’s campaign contributions to charity.

But that was not the end of the affair. The senator’s claim to have been completely open about his relationship with Rezko was called into doubt on Monday when the senator belatedly admitted that, before he bought his home, he and Rezko visited the property together.

Obama better hope that Rezko does not “flip”.

Rezko is a presidential candidate’s nightmare buddy. He stands accused of demanding fake finder’s fees for payments made to Illinois teachers’ and health workers’ state pension funds. And he is accused of defrauding GE Capital out of $10 million in loans for his fast-food franchises.

According to court documents, Rezko is also accused of prompting “at least one other individual” to give money to Obama’s senatorial campaign, then reimbursing him, in violation of federal election law.

Prosecutors have submitted to the court a 26-page list of those Rezko wanted appointed to posts in Illinois Governor Blagojevich’s administration. The list contains those whom Obama recommended for state jobs. On Thursday it was reported that among those Rezko proposed for a job was the real estate agent who conducted the sale of Sen. Obama’s home.

“Naivety”? Is that what we want in the President of the United States?

The links between Obama and Rezko that will be on show in the forthcoming trial may expose a chink in Obama’s shining armor. Hard evidence of his at best naivety in the face of political corruption may not come quickly enough to help Hillary Clinton, who must win in Texas and Ohio on March 4 if she is to escape defeat. Most of the coming week in court will be taken up with jury selection.

In one of the early debates Clinton berated Obama for his links to Rezko, whom she called a “slum landlord.” The remark was dismissed by the Obama camp and Clinton has not returned to the attack. She will be sorely tempted to revive the issue this week.

Oops – Superdelegates beware – voters beware:

If the Rezko trial comes too late to alert Democratic voters to the murkier side of Obama’s time in Chicago politics, John McCain can be sure to exploit the court-attested fact that the Illinois Senator is not as free from the influence of sleaze as he likes to suggest.

“Today in the crowd I was given two mailings that Sen. Obama’s campaign has been sending out. … I have to express my deep disappointment that he has continuing to send false and discredited mailing with information that is not true to the voters of Ohio”.

“We have consistently called him on it. It has been discredited. It is blatantly false, and yet he continues to spend millions of dollars perpetuating falsehoods”.

“Enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove’s playbook” . “This is wrong and every Democrat should be outraged.”

“He says one thing in speeches and then he turns around and does this,”

“That is not the new politics that the speeches are about. It is not hopeful, it is destructive particularly for a Democrat to be discrediting universal health care by waging a false campaign against my plan, to be talking about NAFTA in a way that tries to make him appear to have a plan when he does not.”

“It is the worst kind of politics. Number one, it is wrong and untrue, and number two, it is exactly the talking points that the health insurance industry and the Republicans use on a daily basis.

“Sen. Obama knows that it is not true that my plan forces people to buy insurance even if the can’t afford it. … My plan has more financial help my plan has been evaluated by independent experts as actually achieving universal coverage and providing the financial assistance so everyone can have health care.

“This mailing about NAFTA saying that I believe NAFTA was a ‘boon’ quoted a newspaper [Newsday] that has corrected the record. We have pointed it out, the newspaper has pointed it out. Time and time again you hear one thing in speeches and then you see a campaign that has the worst kind of tactics reminiscent of the same sort of Republican attacks on Democrats.

“Well, I am here to say that it is not only wrong, but it is undermining core Democratic principles. Since when do Democrats attack one another on universal health care?”

“This is the kind of attack that not only undermines core Democratic values, but gives aid and comfort to the very special interests and their allies in the Republican party,”

“Shame on you Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public, that’s what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio, and lets have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.”

Obama has spent this election season trashing Democratic ideals. On Social Security Obama has chanted Republican slogans about a “crisis”. Obama has employed “Harry and Louise” iconography to trash the concept of mandates – a concept central to Universal health care, social security, and even auto insurance.

Obama has cooperated with Big Media in trashing Hillary Clinton and the administration of Bill Clinton. Obama has even trashed the very notion that it is Bush and the Republicans who bear total responsibility for the mess the United States is in. According to Obama, Democrats have not reached out enough to work “across the aisle” with Republicans.

Hypocrite Obama supporters and other assorted PINOs who have not complained, but rather, praised Obama’s trash talk against Democratic values and Democrats were up in arms this week over the remarks by Machinist Union President Tom Buffenbarger.

Among other sharp remarks, Buffenbarger said this, which upset the incense burners:

“Give me a break! I’ve got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won’t last a round against the Republican attack machine. He’s a poet, not a fighter.”

Obama incense burners were upset at a labor leader denouncing the Obama demographic who have nothing to lose in this election. Bottom line is that the “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearning, trust fund babies” are economically secure enough to survive whatever happens in November.

The “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearning, trust fund babies” are the ones who got us all into the mess we are in when they supported Ralph Nader in 2000.

The “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearning, trust fund babies” gambled with other people’s lives and other people’s money in 2000. In 2008 they are singing the same ol’ kumbaya song.

These are the unglamourous lives Naderites and incense burners are gambling with:

Big Media America and the “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearning, trust fund babies”, the incense burners, the PINOs and the Naderites are in their cult bubble. In the same way that DeTocqueville explained America to Americans long ago it will take outsiders to plot the graph of delusion Americans are currently embracing.

The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance. Not unlike the dot-com hype, his campaign promises more than he can deliver. The one thing his voters can count on is that they will ultimately be disappointed.

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama reminds many people of former President John F. Kennedy or civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But when I hear him speak, I have to think of the crazy days of the New Economy.

It was a magical time, even for the most levelheaded of business executives. For several years, wild promises seemed to be the most valuable currency in circulation. Profits? No big deal! Experience? Unnecessary! Realism? More of an obstacle than anything else. While some entrepreneurs undoubtedly had realistic business models and administrative talent, most of them were simply peddling ideas.

Der Spiegel holds “the mirror” for all of us to see America:

The future is a hotly traded commodity in the 2008 US presidential campaign. Voters are hungry for change and for radical departure from a present they now perceive as mediocre, especially after seven meager years under the current president, George W. Bush. A man like Barack Obama is adept at taking advantage of this yearning. He utters beautiful sentences that massage the soul, sentences like: “We are the ones we have been waiting for” and “Our destiny will not be written for us, but by us.”

At his campaign appearances, Obama and his adoring supporters toss his campaign slogan, “Yes, we can,” back and forth until the room is in a frenzy. His events are reminiscent of Sunday morning exchanges between a fiery pastor and his enthusiastic congregation, except that Obama’s crowds are even more fervent.

But anyone able to look past the rhetoric of the 46-year-old candidate will recognize a growing sense of doubt — doubt that Obama easily manages to quell in his next speech, or his next one after that. The senator’s successes in the primaries also have a narcotizing effect. Obama defines himself as a new type of politician, as someone who refuses to be judged by the old standards.

The rhetoric all sounds strangely familiar. In the New Economy’s heyday, the traditional analysis of a stock’s value based on its fundamentals — key economic indicators like profit, sales and numbers of employees — suddenly became a thing of the past, and was replaced by the so-called momentum method. Now a company was seen as a good business if its stock rose and an excellent business if its stock rose steeply. The motto of the day? I rise, therefore I am. Bernie Ebbers was considered a good manager in those days. The price of his company’s stock rose from less than $5 in the early days to a high of $62 in 1999. Ebbers was flying high. He had momentum.

The young peddler of ideas from Chicago is experiencing the same boost, as he rushes from one electoral success to the next. Success feeds success. Obama has momentum, too.

Incense burners are gambling with many lives that will suffer if Republicans maintain their throttling grip on the nation. Obama meanwhile disdains a victory for Democrats of merely “51%”. Obama wants to role the dice with other people’s lives.

Der Spiegel catalogues the future and the great gamble incense burners and Obama want to take with other people’s lives:

Nevertheless, if Obama is elected he will eventually be forced to disappoint his voters. Politics in a democratic society is a balancing of interests, not a revivalist meeting. It takes finesse, experience and power to transform ideas into reality. Hope and optimism can enhance these qualities, but they cannot replace them. Obama’s message is more of a promise to heal the nation than a campaign platform.

The future Obama is promising seems foggy and indistinct. He wants to change the rules of engagement in politics, but he neglects to explain how and in what direction. He wants to write a new page in the history books, but what handwriting does he plan to use to make his entry? He wants to drive out lobbyists, but if he does, who will champion the interests of union members, war veterans and chemical corporations? He wants to negotiate with the world’s dictators, but to what end, exactly?

In fact, Obama’s most dangerous land mines are hidden in foreign policy. A quick withdrawal from Iraq? Sounds great. But the mistake of having started this war in the first place cannot be corrected by ending it in a mad rush to get out of Iraq. A rapid withdrawal of the US military would most likely be followed by a bloody civil war. Al-Qaida would manage to sink its teeth into Iraq once and for all. Iran would rejoice. And Osama bin Laden and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be the real winners of the 2008 American presidential election.

On top of all that, Obama, in an effort to show strength, has come up with a new, and in some ways exclusive, theater for the US armed forces. He talks about military operations in the nuclear power Pakistan, operations that he, as commander-in-chief, would order even without the approval of the United Nations. That is “the war we need to win,” he says again and again.

But in reality a military campaign in Pakistan would be lunacy, even if many in the American media have chosen to studiously ignore Obama’s comments. A comparison with President John F. Kennedy, who was 43 when he was elected, reveals that Kennedy was in fact unenthusiastic about going to war in Vietnam. It was a war the inexperienced President slid into, and if he was a war president, it was by accident and not design.

Der Spiegel, a German magazine, has special insight into the politics of despair:

But there is no room for thoughtfulness in the turbulent world of Obamania. Hillary Clinton, his rival in the fight for the Democratic nomination, suffers from the same problems as traditional companies in the automotive and engineering industries did when confronted with the hype of the New Economy. She is out of touch with his supporters. She uses language to explain, while Obama uses rhetoric to intoxicate. She tells voters what she is bringing to the table. He tells them what they can become. If Clinton is a solid stock, Obama is an option. If she’s a secure investment, he is speculation.

When the New Economy reached its conclusion, people suddenly realized that their hopes were dashed and their cravings for quick riches left unfulfilled. In 2002, Worldcom’s stock price fell to less than 10 cents.

If democracy functions only half as well as the market economy, the Obama bubble will burst. The burning question is: When? Will it happen before the Democratic nomination this August — or not until afterwards?

It is our job, here, now, to burst the bubble before August. Too many lives on the night shift depend on us.

This makes so much sense, we thought we should emphasize it. From Kingsgrove:

Guys, we’re losing focus. There’s no time to whine about the media, Ripublican interference, or any other conspiracies right now. We all know what we’re up against. We can’t control what our opponents do. We CAN control what we do, and that’s putting all of our blood, sweat and tears into this effort. We have to be there for Hillary, as she’s been there for us. It’s all about her right now.

DON’T LOSE FOCUS! DON’T GET DISTRACTED! I repeat, there’s not much time left. Not one second can be wasted. It’s now or never.

We have to get on the phone, and donate all we can (money, time, etc) right now. We can still win this….IF WE WANT IT BAD ENOUGH! Let’s do it!

Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois will face off in a Democratic presidential debate in Austin Thursday.

The debate, to be held on the campus of the University of Texas, will air live on CNN, CNN International and CNN.com from 8 to 9:30 p.m. ET. The debate will also air in Spanish on Univision at 11:30 p.m. ET.

For both candidates, a great deal is at stake. This is the first time in three weeks that the two remaining major Democratic White House hopefuls have debated.

The debate comes at an important learning moment. Even though extreme right-wing Republicans hate John McCain they recognize the bigger enemy is Big Media. When the New York Times printed an attack on Republican McCain, the entire Republican Party came together to denounce the New York Times.

In contrast, during the many times Hillary Clinton has been unfairly attacked by Big Media, Democrats supporting Obama have rejoiced. That treachery by Democrats and allies will never be forgotten.